Grow Your Own!

... And rabbits and chickens

Peter Prior - under gardener

Linda Hackett

The residents of St. Helier put their gardens to good use during the years of rationing, and some extended their efforts to keeping an allotment as well. To get fresh eggs and extend the meat ration, many householders kept chickens and sometimes rabbits. A few residents even kept a goat and used the nearby greens for grazing.

Up to mischief!

"My dad used to keep chickens. I mean you couldn't afford to buy a chicken at Christmas and that so he used to keep chickens and obviously get the eggs and things. I can remember once being very naughty and I hid in the chicken coop . Well, you know, eventually I've had to come out and I'd got all these like - whatever it is that a chicken had got! Mum went mad. She stood me out in the back garden, stripped all me clothes off and was chucking buckets of cold water over me. "You won't do that again!"